Singer, producer and songwriter Tommy Barlow is a distinctive new voice in UK music. While he playfully describes his sound as “farm grunge”, his work feels unmistakably contemporary – a kind of digital, half-lit world-building coalescing with the traditional folk music he grew up with in a musical family just outside Cambridge.
Now signed to Young – home to the likes of Sampha, The xx, Isaiah Hull, Robyn, John Maus, Mechatok and John Glacier – Tommy today releases ‘Earth Killer’, his debut single for the label. Written, recorded and self-produced in the aftermath of a relationship breakdown, the track was made in a few cathartic hours on a laptop with Logic in a makeshift home studio: a mattress pushed against the bedroom door of the Turnpike Lane house he shared with six other musicians.
Accompanied by a Josh Renaut & Cuan Roche-directed music video, ‘Earth Killer’ invites listeners into a bruised but luminous world: a part-defiant, part-regretful slow-burn torch song that feels both intimate and slightly unmoored – a glimpse of an artist whose music blurs memory, place and feeling. Watch here.
Meanwhile, having recently toured with By Storm (formerly Injury Reserve) and Chanel Beads, and following a performance at Salford’s Sounds From The Other City this weekend, Tommy is set to play festivals across the UK this summer. These include The Great Escape, Dot To Dot, Latitude and End Of The Road.
Stream / download ‘Earth Killer’ here.
